


great whales of the sea

by canistakahari



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Established Relationship, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Outer Space, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Whales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21806188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canistakahari/pseuds/canistakahari
Summary: “Whales make sounds,” says Bucky, shocked.“They sing,” Steve says absently.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 146
Kudos: 1187





	great whales of the sea

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [[翻译]great whales of the sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22814071) by [juliaindream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliaindream/pseuds/juliaindream)



> If you would like to listen to "Songs of the Humpback Whales", you can do so, right [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-7QrQ0cbpg). I highly recommend it. 
> 
> Title from the Matthew Good song of the same name.

  


On December 10th, 2018, Natasha sends him a text. 

**nat** : voyager 2 has left the solar system

It’s the kind of message that feels like it must be in code, largely because Bucky doesn’t immediately understand what it means. “What the fuck is Voyager 2?” he demands out loud. 

Across the living room from him on the couch, Steve lifts his head like an alert dog. “Hm?”

Bucky is not on the couch. Bucky is on the rug in front of the fireplace, sitting cross-legged as he bends over his phone, absorbing heat directly into his bones. “Voyager 2,” repeats Bucky. 

“Hmm,” says Steve, rapidly losing interest. His gaze slips away first and then his head drops back down to his book. Useless.

 **bucky** : what  
**nat** : you like space  
**nat** : just thought maybe you’d want to know  
**bucky** : i repeat... what

A few weeks ago, Bucky read an article about black holes in the middle of the night and scared himself so badly he texted Natasha to communicate his existential dread to someone that didn’t just look at him steadily like Steve did and say, “So, don’t think about it too hard, then.”

Apparently that translates to _you like space_ in Natasha’s world. The thing is, Bucky _does_ like space. He also has a healthy fear of space, because even for a brain like his, which is similarly full of holes, the concept of a gravitational pull so strong that light can’t escape makes the hair rise on the back of his neck. 

Still. Natasha isn’t providing an explanation, so he googles it for himself. 

There wasn’t a lot of time in his life for recreational science when he was being put in and out of deep freeze during the tail-end of the cold war, which is apparently when Voyager 2 was launched. Voyager 1 incongruously followed it 16 days later, journeying out into the solar system with the goal of surveying the outer planets. 

Now, 41 years later, both probes have left the solar system and continued into interstellar space. 

Bucky carefully puts his phone down on the carpet and looks up at the ceiling. Half an hour later, singular thought processed, he texts Natasha back. 

**bucky** : neat  
**nat** : I thought so

The conversation is over now. Factoid delivered, Natasha leaves Bucky to bear the weight of this knowledge alone, so he immediately shares it with Steve. 

“It’s a probe,” he says. “Voyager 2. A space probe.”

“That sounds neat,” Steve says, without looking up. 

“That’s what I said. It was launched in 1977.”

“Oh.”

“There’s a Voyager 1, too.”

“That’s usually the case when you number something.”

Bucky bends back over his phone, reading. Both probes completed their primary missions, but will continue to travel forever unless stopped. 

“Hey,” says Bucky sharply. “Hey. Did you know about this?”

“Did I know about these space probes?” Asked a question directly, Steve actually looks up this time to give Bucky his full attention. 

“Yes,” says Bucky impatiently. 

“Specifically? No. Generally, yes. I read about NASA when they first caught me up on what I missed.” Steve cocks his head. “It was more like a footnote, though. A condensed history of the years 1945 to 2012.”

Bucky can’t reliably piece together a timeline of historical and cultural events that isn’t thematically linked by the common theme of assassination. He can’t fill the holes in his brain with his own blurry memories of the decades he was active as the Winter Soldier. Leaps in technology, scientific innovations and discoveries, none of them were relevant to Bucky outside of the tools available to him. 

But this… _This_.

Those little probes traveled so, so far. 

He takes it all in, eagerly devouring the article, until— 

The section titled _Golden Record_ staggers him one last time.

> “Each Voyager space probe carries a gold-plated audio-visual disc in the event that either spacecraft is ever found by intelligent life-forms from other planetary systems. The discs carry photos of the Earth and its lifeforms, a range of scientific information, spoken greetings from the people (e.g. the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the United States, and the children of the Planet Earth) and a medley, "Sounds of Earth", that includes the sounds of whales, a baby crying, waves breaking on a shore, and a collection of music…” [[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2#Golden_record)]

The sounds of _whales_?

They immortalized the Earth on a golden record and flung it into the far reaches of interstellar space for whoever might find it, long after all traces of the human race might be gone. Photos, information, human language and greetings, music— 

And the sounds of whales. 

Out of all the living creatures on this planet, they chose to represent whales alongside human speech. Has Bucky ever even heard a whale? What the fuck does it sound like?

It must be beautiful. 

“Whales make sounds,” says Bucky, shocked.

“They sing,” Steve says absently. 

Sing? They _sing_? The sounds of whales are classified as song? What does that even mean? Is it like birdsong? What does that sound like, underwater? 

“How do you know that?” asks Bucky. “Why do you know that?”

“I was advised that sometimes people listen to whalesong to help them fall asleep,” Steve says. He turns a page of his book noisily. 

Bucky considers this. “Some people...like you?” 

Steve’s eyes flick up from his book. “I tried a lot of things at first.”

“Did it work?”

“No. But that says more about me than the whales,” says Steve. 

“You sleep like a brick.”

Steve nods. “Now I do.”

These days, it’s Bucky who’s the bad sleeper. 

They mitigate with a set routine, an alarm that goes off every night at 10:30; Bucky gets up from wherever he is and goes to plug in his phone, before he locks himself in the bathroom for half an hour to shower, to wash his face and moisturize, to brush his teeth. There’s lavender in his pillow and a humidifier by his side of the bed. He’s in bed by 11, and if it’s a good night, he drops off before Steve comes to bed at midnight, and usually wakes up a few times in the night to find himself weighed down by Steve’s bulk, which usually drags him right back into a deep sleep. 

Not always, though. Sometimes he’s awake all night, blinking up at the ceiling, rolling over and over while Steve snores softly beside him, unbothered unless Bucky’s caught in a disturbed dream. 

Sometimes Steve gets up the next morning and finds him on the floor beside the bed, wrapped in a blanket, eyes on the threshold of the bedroom door. 

It’s not bedtime yet, but Bucky abruptly gets up from his spot on the floor. 

Steve says, “Okay, Buck?”

“Fine,” says Bucky. Then, “I’m going to go read. In bed.”

Steve raises his head. His expression is always so warm when he looks at Bucky, mouth soft, his eyelashes dark against the tops of his cheeks. This is a deviation in routine, but he doesn’t question it out loud, even though Bucky reads the concern in his eyes. “You want me to come?”

“No,” says Bucky, then feels bad for how quickly he said it. Steve doesn’t react, though. If the edges are sharp enough to hurt him, he doesn’t show it. Bucky will make it up to him later. 

“Sure. I’ll keep it down out here.”

Bucky scoffs. “No parties. It’s Monday night.”

Steve salutes him. “You got it, pal.”

Bucky takes the cue to leave, slipping into their bedroom and closing the door. He pauses in front of the bathroom for a long moment, briefly paralyzed by the idea of completing his bedtime routine before he gets into bed, but the anxiety that swirls up is too challenging to process, so he settles on plugging his phone in and getting on top of the bed instead of inside it. 

His alarm will still go off at 10:30. He’ll get up then. 

The expensive noise-canceling headphones that Steve got him are in the bedside table, so Bucky opens the drawer, feeling strangely illicit as he takes them out and slips them on. Sometimes he just wears them while sitting perfectly still in the dark with nothing playing. 

Tonight, though, he pairs them with his phone and searches for whale songs. 

The white noise rush of water fills his ears first. Eyes closed, he stretches out on his back and waits. He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but the mournful wail that stretches into low, pulsing calls hits him so deep in the gut that Bucky wrestles the headphones off and throws them to the end of the bed, gasping. 

His heart is pounding and his eyes are hot with tears. 

What the _fuck_. 

Pressing his hand over his mouth, he folds over his knees, steadying his breathing. When he’s calm again, he recovers his headphones and cautiously puts them back on, ducking his head back underwater. 

The song shifted while he got himself under control, and a series of resonant clicks washes over him, raising the hair on his arms. He can feel the reverberations in his teeth. Bucky muffles a sob in his hand, shivering. His chest fills with plaintive whistles and high, piercing vocalizations that sound like the agonized cries of a sorrowful ghost. 

Unexpectedly shaken, Bucky covers his face with both hands. 

The song warbles and then eventually fades into deep, undulating grunts. For a wild moment, it is physically uncomfortable to keep listening as each repetition vibrates directly up his spine and pings into the base of his skull. 

Bucky forces himself to take a deep breath. He feels like an idiot, lying on the rumpled bed covers and thinking _they’re talking to each other_ over and over again with increasing hysteria. 

It’s not a revelation. He hasn’t made a shocking scientific discovery. Someone else stuck a microphone in the water and recorded this haunting, irregular melody before they etched it onto a probe and hurled it into space. So what if whales talk? All sentient creatures on this lonely planet find ways to talk to each other.

Maybe he’s projecting. Maybe it’s because they sound so _sad_. 

Bucky hears melancholy inherent in the wild fluctuations of rhythm, categorizing the song as a clear lament, but this interpretation is formed by his own emotional bias. Does it sound sad because Bucky is sad? Why is he so confident in the context he’s assigned?

 _Doleful_ , he thinks, as the melody shifts into high, individual notes that echo back beneath the water. Is this just one whale reaching out? Is anyone calling back? 

Beyond the occasional bubbling rush of water, there is just this—a lone, dominating voice traveling miles and miles beneath the surface in a haunting dirge. 

When the recording ends, Bucky starts it over again from the beginning. 

The physiological response he initially experienced has tempered into a more manageable emotion. It’s good to feel it right at his core; each piercing cry hooks beneath his ribs and carries him down under the crush of waves. 

There’s not really much difference between the vast uncertainty of the ocean and the endless aching expanse of space. 

Deep, and dark, while giants labor in the depths. 

He’s so caught up in his head that he doesn’t notice when the recording ends for the second time. He does notice that the bedroom door is now open and Steve is standing in it. Even though these are very expensive headphones, Bucky still has superpowered ears; he does register the soft murmur of Steve’s voice, though he has to read his lips to really hear him say, “Can I come in?”

Bucky pushes his headphones off. “Yeah.”

“I knocked,” Steve says softly, approaching the bed. “Don’t think you heard me.”

“No. Sorry.”

At some point, Bucky rolled himself lengthwise across the width of the bed, socked feet dangling off the side. When he reaches him, Steve sits down on the edge of the mattress by Bucky’s head, propping himself up over Bucky’s torso to bend down and press a soft kiss to his temple. “Hey, pal.”

“Hey,” mumbles Bucky. He hasn’t done anything worth hiding from Steve but he still feels oddly guilty. There’s something to unpack there but he’s too busy processing the raw state of his heart after listening to a solid hour of whale songs. 

“Ready for bed?”asks Steve. The tips of his fingers rub softly through Bucky’s loose hair. He doesn’t even ask what Bucky’s been doing in here when it’s clear he hasn’t been reading in bed. 

“We sent whales into space,” blurts Bucky, because now that he’s heard it for himself, he understands why. It makes perfect sense. There was no other choice. 

Steve blinks at him. “Is that so,” he says slowly. 

“They recorded their songs.” Bucky rolls over onto his back, looking earnestly up at Steve. “Put them on a probe and sent them to the very edge of the solar system.” 

“Oh,” says Steve. He’s still scratching lightly at Bucky’s scalp, soft and soothing. “Whales, huh?”

“Yeah,” breathes Bucky.

Steve considers him with such clear, unwavering fondness that Bucky’s eyes prickle just a bit with a swell of uncontrollable sentimentality. Maybe they haven’t traveled across a solar system like two voyaging probes, but they’ve come so far to get here together.

Kind of like two migrating whales. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Steve murmurs. He bends his mussed blond head again, brushing a kiss against Bucky’s brow. “I can make you some tea.”

“Would you still want me if I was a whale?” asks Bucky. “Would you sing for me?”

Steve hums softly. “You know I can’t carry a tune.”

Bucky scoffs. “You’d be a whale, too, genius.”

“Oh, in that case,” says Steve at length. “Of course I’d sing for you.”

Bucky closes his eyes, taking a deep, easy breath. His strong reaction to the recording has left him exhausted. It’s definitely time for bed. “I’d find my way back to you, then.”

“That’s good.” Steve strokes Bucky’s hair. “I’d still want you. I’ll always want you, Buck.”

There’s a lump in Bucky’s throat. “I need to get up and wash my face,” he croaks. “Stop talking. Just shut up and look pretty.”

Steve’s mouth twists into a fond smile, one eyebrow climbing high. “Go moisturize. I’ll take off all my clothes and wait in bed for you.”

“Quietly,” says Bucky, smiling as he pushes himself up on his elbows. “Silence is key.”

“What if I sing?” Steve asks lightly.

Bucky scoots his legs off the end of the bed and drags himself to his feet. “Can’t carry a tune,” he says. “Get back to me when you’re a whale.”

Half an hour later, when Bucky has showered, and is freshly exfoliated and moisturized, with his hair piled in a loose bun on the top of his head, he crawls into bed alongside Steve’s naked body and tucks himself against his chest. Steve snorts awake as Bucky pulls Steve’s heavy arm over his shoulder. “Still a person, I see,” Bucky says softly, kissing Steve’s throat. 

“Mm,” rumbles Steve, wrapping Bucky up in his arms. “Seems so.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

Steve isn’t a whale when they wake up the next day. Steve does go out for a little while in the morning after breakfast and returns with something square and flat in a reusable shopping bag. 

“What did you bring me?” asks Bucky, from where he’s cocooned on the couch. 

“A record,” says Steve. 

Bucky isn’t actually expecting it to be a gift, so he sits up excitedly. “Music?”

“Well,” says Steve. “Not exactly?” He slides the record out of the bag and holds it up. 

The sleeve is battered, with ragged edges. It sports an illustration of a breaching whale on a blue-green background. In white print in the top left corner, the album reads: _Songs of the Humpback Whale_. 

“I looked it up,” says Steve. “This was released in 1970. It’s the first set of recordings capturing whale vocalizations that was released to the public. It’s not quite your golden record, but—”

Bucky throws off his blanket and crosses the room to cut Steve off with a hard, searing kiss. 

To his credit, Steve manages to catch Bucky in his arms without dropping the record.

This time, they listen to it together. Steve sets it gently on the record player to spin, adjusting the needle as the warm crackle fills the room, and joins Bucky on the couch to be tucked under the blanket with him. 

There’s some measure of nervous anticipation tangled in the pit of Bucky’s belly. It doesn’t matter that Steve knows what he’s about to hear—knew about it long before Bucky did, in fact. There’s no rational part of him that starts to get keyed up. Bucky just knows he fixates on what would politely be referred to as “niche” subjects these days, his barometer for acceptable hobbies wildly out of touch, but Steve has never found his interests to be off putting. 

Still, when the lonely call of a graceful leviathan fills the cozy living room, and Steve lets out a soft, appreciative sound, Bucky relaxes. 

“I forgot how melancholy they sound,” he admits, arms tightening around Bucky. “Maybe that’s why they didn’t help me sleep.”

“They sing for a lot of reasons,” says Bucky. “I looked it up. To find a partner, or find their way. To let each other know things about where they are. Maybe they sound sad, but they’re just calling out for each other the same way that we have conversations. They’ll get their answers.”

He thinks, again, of those profound voices etched onto a golden disc, crossing the galaxy into the unknown, and finds more comfort in that fact than he thought possible. 

Steve presses his face into the crook of Bucky’s shoulder. “Hello,” he says quietly. “I’m here.”

“Hi,” whispers Bucky, voice thick. “Me too.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] great whales of the sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605958) by [quietnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietnight/pseuds/quietnight)




End file.
